


The Girl Who Won't Grow Up

by rachaellikestoread



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2021-02-18 07:13:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21590557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rachaellikestoread/pseuds/rachaellikestoread
Summary: Princess Usagi Small Lady Serenity is the only child in the world who has stopped growing before reaching adulthood. This story explores the effect this gradual realization has had on Small Lady and those around her.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 18





	The Girl Who Won't Grow Up

When Chibi-Usa is born as Usagi Small Lady Serenity, no one is really aware that the Silver Crystal will have an effect on anyone's longevity. This won’t happen for several years, when older humans begin to realize that their aging has simply… _stopped_. After all, everyone ages differently, and most people look the same within the span of just a few years.

So, Small Lady is the first person to noticeably stop aging.

Small Lady is five when she stops growing, but because growing is gradual even in children, it takes a while for those close to Small Lady to realize that something’s not right. On her sixth birthday, her parents realize that she hasn’t grown much since her last one. At this age, kids tend to grow 2-3 inches per year. Her parents (and the other Sailor Soldiers, who have fallen in love with this little cotton-candy-haired girl) frown as they look at her growth chart, which has been lovingly marked every year since she was born. She’s grown normally so far. But okay, maybe she’s just a little short for her age. Usagi was short, too! It’s not a problem.

But on Small Lady’s seventh birthday, everyone is surprised to discover that she hasn’t grown at all this year. Now, they’re starting to get a little nervous. Mercury volunteers to look into why Small Lady is no longer growing. She asks permission to put up a notice asking for anyone with a child who has stopped growing to come forward, which Neo-Queen Serenity grants. Anyone who asks may be told about Small Lady’s lack of growth. She is not ashamed of her daughter.

Mercury gets a few responses, mostly from concerned parents who feel their child’s growth has slowed, but not stopped entirely. In some cases, the child has dwarfism or a lack of the growth hormone. Her research on conditions that prevent or slow growth leads her to perform many check-ups on Small Lady, all the while assuring her that she’s completely healthy, and that this is just to rule other things out. But deep down, everyone is beginning to suspect that this is something that’s unique to Small Lady.

Still, they keep hoping that Small Lady will just start growing again. They try to keep their concern from Small Lady. They might even try to tell her little white lies: “Small Lady, I think you look a little taller today! Pretty soon you’ll be too big to give piggyback rides anymore!” “You know, Small Lady, maybe you’re lucky. Maybe you just get to be a kid for a little while longer. I wish I could have spent more of my years as a child!”

By the time Small Lady has her eighth birthday, she’s the shortest kid in her class by far. Many 6-year-olds and most 7-year-olds are taller than her as well. Some of the kids are starting to tease her a little bit–mostly lightheartedly, they call her “Shrimp” or “Squirt.” She doesn’t like that, but she stays quiet. For now.

When Small Lady is ten years old, some of the kids are getting meaner. Other kids feel sorry for her and act nice to her in a way that lacks genuine interest. Everybody, even the teachers, is treating her like a younger child. It’s not just her height, either–Small Lady retains the proportions and facial features of a five-year-old. She begins to act out, angry at the kids for teasing her or condescending to her, angry at herself and at her body for not growing, angry at her parents for making her like this. As she gets older, she does whatever she can to appear taller--making her buns longer, wearing platform or high-heel shoes (in which she inevitably has difficulty walking), hanging around with other vertically-challenged kids and avoiding the tallest ones. She doesn’t really play with the other short kids, though, because they think that they have to play “baby games” so she doesn’t get hurt. They’re starting to think that maybe she’s not too bright, either, an idea that isn’t helped by her increasingly obnoxious behavior.

At age twelve, she comes home, saying she isn’t going to school anymore. She feels ridiculous in her custom-made uniform, sitting on a custom-made chair so she can see over her desk, staring up at envy with the girls who are now towering over her and growing breasts. Everyone looks at her with pity, even the kids with grades lower than hers and kids who are always getting into trouble for fighting or talking back to the teachers.

Her parents pull her out of school and hire private tutors.

Several years pass, and even as Small Lady continues to grow in knowledge, her emotional maturity remains stagnant. She plays with toys. She throws tantrums. She holds the hands of the adults around her. They’ve been treating her like a small child the whole time–it’s so much _easier_ this way–so how can she do otherwise?

The years become decades, and the decades become centuries. Everyone has accepted that this is how it’s going to be. Small Lady will not age; she will stay a young child. Maybe she will grow up someday, but after years of special diets, worldwide and even interplanetary research, and even attempting to create a miracle through the power of the Silver Crystal, there is no known trigger for ending this stagnancy. Nobody even seems sad about it anymore; they’ve moved on. Occasionally, Neo-Queen Serenity or King Endymion will get a wistful look on their face, but they always make sure to tell Small Lady that they love her just the way she is, and are thankful every day for her existence.

In some ways, this makes her happy. She is glad that her parents love her as she is. She thinks about those kids she reads about in storybooks, whose parents don’t care about them, or even hate them and abandon them in the woods.

But in other ways, it hurts that they’re not grieving with her (or don’t seem to be). Small Lady is several hundred years old now. When she goes outside–which is becoming increasingly rare–she sees children, and over the course of several years, they always grow, sometimes astonishingly fast. They stare at her. They point. They whisper. A few giggle. A few turn to their parent or nanny, looking up nervously, as if they’re asking “Am I going to stop growing, too?” Small Lady imagines the adult’s answer: “No, sweetie. That girl is the only one in the world who never grows up. There’s something _strange_ about her. But don’t worry, you’re _normal_.”

Occasionally, she gets cornered by other (?) kids. They repeat what their parents have thoughtlessly said while they were listening, that she never grows up and doesn’t really resemble the Queen. And she doesn’t even have a crescent moon on her forehead. Maybe she’s not really the Queen’s daughter. After all, they’re never really seen together, are they?

And then, one day, it all comes to a head.

“Everyone’s saying you’re a fake princess–that you’re not really the Queen’s child.”

Small Lady tries to refute in the best way she can. But deep down, she wonders. Is she? She doesn’t remember her own birth. Maybe everyone is lying to her. Maybe she really _is_ a fake princess.

Afraid to ask her mother, Small Lady slowly makes her way to the Queen’s room, where the Silver Crystal is. If she can use its power--even just a little bit--then that will be proof enough that she is the Queen’s daughter.

And as she stares up at the source of her mother’s power, its light seems to beckon her–or is it taunting her?–and she wonders which possibility is scarier: that she’s a fake princess, or that she’s her mother’s true daughter, but something went wrong, and she’s only tiny and useless.


End file.
